


Ghastly Ghouls

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Humor, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 09:17:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21177038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Noctis was determined to create his own haunted house. And Prompto somehow always ends up his guinea pig.





	Ghastly Ghouls

**Author's Note:**

> for the ffxvhalloweenweek event!

“Okay, everybody say… I don’t know. Monster toes!”

The gaggle of children in front of the graveyard took Prompto’s instructions a little too literally, all squealing, “I don’t know monster toes!” as the camera flashed. The cold white light beamed across purple painted faces and green felt masks, carved red horns and braided blue wigs, all ghastly grinning amongst the foam tombstones. Once Prompto lowered his camera, they were gone like ghosts, vanished back to their crypts. They left behind no proof of their existence, save for a scant trail of candy wrappers and echoes of screeching laughter.

Prompto shook his head, smiling at the image that appeared on his screen in spite of his exasperation. Getting a bunch of sugar-high schoolchildren to sit still for even a single moment – and on the eve of Hallowtide, no less – was an accomplishment that any photographer could take pride in. No matter how the shot turned out in the end, at least Prompto could count that split second of giddy serenity among his artistic achievements. Fortunately, the picture itself – fleeting though it had been – ended up looking pretty great, too. One to haunt next year’s ad campaign? He sure hoped so!

“Getting some good ones?”

Prompto jumped in surprise, clutching his camera to his chest so he didn’t drop it. There might not be a next year for him, if Noct ended up scaring him to death before this one was out. His friend laughed at his distress, fake green gills giggling in tandem with the shake of his shoulders.

“Dude, I wasn’t even trying that time!” he said.

“You’ve gotta stop creeping up on me, man,” Prompto wheezed, catching his breath. “You’re creepy, even when you’re trying not to be. You’re a creeper!”

“That’s the point. It’s Hallowtide, you dork.”

Noctis cuffed his shoulder, his rubber gloves as clammy and cold as the creature he was aiming to drag from the depths of the costume department. He never did miss an opportunity to fish, whether it be from the coast or the rental rack. This year, the Prince had disguised himself as some sort of radioactive, mutated monstrosity of fins and fangs that crawled up from the pits of science fiction’s deepest sea. Prompto probably wouldn’t have recognized him beneath all of the blue-green paint, pond scum prosthetics, and primeval trappings of the most demented bottom-dweller.

He might have thought that he was a part of the attraction. Noctis quirked his head towards the haunted façade with a ghoulish grin. “So. You going in?”

Haunted houses were expensive, sometimes exclusive establishments around Insomnia come Hallowtide. A lot of them required reservations and were geared towards adults, drenched in gruesome décor and plagued by gory, hatchet-wielding psychopaths that chased victims through blackened, bloody mazes. Prompto knew this because Noctis all but dragged him through each and every one before the season really started. It was for _research_, he’d said. Because if he was going to open a haunted house of his own, he needed to know how _not_ to traumatize his kid clientele.

Prompto wasn’t convinced that Noct couldn’t dream up a design _without_ “researching the competition,” but he went along with him anyway. Because Noct was his best friend, and best friends didn’t let each other walk into a den of fake axe murderers without moral support and magical warp escape capabilities.

“I guess so,” Prompto sighed, dramatically, laying it on thick to ensure Noctis felt guilty enough into coming with him. “Should probably know what my winning photo will really be the face of, huh?”

“If that’s your way of trying to pull favor, I’d save it for someone who’s actually on the judging panel.”

“Honestly, Noct, what good is our friendship if it can’t be abused for my own nefarious ends?”

“It’s good for me and _my_ nefarious ends,” Noctis declared, and gestured to the door beyond the cemetery, where costumed children of all ages were daring each other to go inside.

Cobwebs and cardboard cut-outs framed the entrance, with glow-in-the-dark eyes peering from every crack and crevice. There was a sign that promised candy to the brave souls who survived the “Citadel’s Sinister Séance House” to the end, an irresistible reward for the cavity inclined.

“Alright, alright,” Prompto relented. He looped his camera around his neck and swept an arm forward. “Lead the way, Oh Esteemed Lord of the Lagoon.”

Noctis bared his fake fish-beast teeth in a mock snarl, then braved the threshold. He spooked the cluster of kids ahead of them inside with a playful “boo!” They went running off to their doom under a cloak of laughter, thereby making them invincible against the ghosts and ghouls that lurked within. Prompto took a breath and siphoned off some of their courage for himself. If a bunch of twelve year olds could go up against the horrors of the night with nothing but some plastic pumpkin candy carriers and balloon swords, then he could make it to the end, too. Besides, Noct’s haunted house was rated E for Everyone.

Inside, the first obstacle was a corridor draped in tattered white cloth and gauze, illuminated by heavily webbed electric candelabra crawling with black plastic spiders. Ghostly wails welcomed them within, the voices purposely over-acting to instill a more eccentric and inviting vibe for the kids. The lights were bright against the white walls for the first few steps, but they gradually dimmed the further they went inside.

Once they crossed into the first room, it went dark, only to be ignited in neon under strategically hidden black lights. The skeletons of bats and cats and whiskered rats haunted the rungs of shadowy staircases and tattered upholstery. White-sheet ghosts glowed where they hung from the ceiling rafters, their shrouds drifting on an unseen breeze. On the floor were costumed actors shambling between the furniture, beckoning their guests to an untimely grave with over-bright, sickly blue-toothed smiles beneath the lights.

It was suspiciously tame and quiet, Prompto thought. Luring their victims into a false sense of security for the rest of the attraction? He knew Noct. He knew that he had to have designed at least one innocuous jumpscare before the end. This was just to set the mood. And it was a nice mood, he had to admit. Better than the sadistic serial killer lairs he’d had to suffer through all month. This was classier, tasteful, more in the spirit of folktales and fantasy than the headline horrors which inspired the more mature houses.

There was a kitchen decked in witch’s potions, with frogs on the counters and crows on the cupboards. Kids were invited by a wart-faced crone to try her wicked potion – it was apple juice – and were cast beneath her eerie spell to better protect them from the ghouls to come. Prompto thought that he might recognize her beneath the costume, but he couldn’t quite place her. Not until they were shown into the dining room by an undead Dustin Ackers in a ripped up butler’s garb. The witch had been Monica Elshett, Prompto realized. In fact, all of the actors were Crownsguard, now that he was looking for them.

“And you were just making fun of me for pulling favor,” Prompto teased Noctis between rooms.

“I did no such thing,” Noctis insisted, forcing on a straight face. “It’s volunteer only.”

“Uh huh, sure. Didn’t need to bat your eyes or anything.”

“Only bats done are these,” Noctis said, tugging on a rubber bat hanging from the ceiling.

If there had been any doubt that Noct’s haunted house was safe for kids, it was certainly vanquished once Prompto knew that all the actors were highly trained security professionals. Noctis took no small measures when it came to the safety of Insomnia’s children. Prompto heard the distant sounds of delighted screams and hyper giggling ahead and behind them as the batches of kids cycled through the house. He heard a few adult shouts of fright every now and then when a monster caught them by surprise, and that only made the kids laugh harder.

Prompto was proud to say that he was no such victim of a surprise attack by the end of it. No ghosts were going to get an unmanned squeal out of him, he thought. Hah! They were out the back door, looped around to the front of the building where the cemetery was sprawled out. Lines of kids were going in and going out, rushing up to the hired hand at the end of the cemetery fence who was holding their promised candy.

“That was pretty good!” Prompto told Noctis as they meandered to the end.

“Could probably be scarier, I guess,” Noctis said, reviewing all of the little sets they’d walked through.

“Nope! Doesn’t need to be scarier,” Prompto assured him.

“You’re just saying that because you don’t like being scared.”

“Am not! I’m just saying that, for the kids, it’s perfect.”

“Don’t hide behind the kids,” Noctis chuckled. “They can’t protect you.”

Prompto opened his mouth to further argue in defense of his own bravery, only to have it dismantled completely by a high-pitched squeak when he felt two hands land on his shoulders. He threw Noctis at the zombie who crept up behind him in self-defense, unashamedly using the Prince of Lucis as a human meat shield to save his own skin.

“Take him! Fish are better for you!”

“It’s true,” Noctis conceded, barely containing his laughter. “You probably wouldn’t like chicken, anyway.”

Prompto slapped him in the back and shoved him towards the zombie for that. Sacrifices had to be made. But the only sacrifice made was Prompto’s own pride as Noctis leaned against the surprisingly stalwart zombie and laughed. Prompto didn’t know what was more horrifying: having to live this down with Noct for the rest of his life, or the fact that the zombie turned out to be Cor the Immortal Leonis. He just stared, completely deadpan, at the two of them. Prompto had no idea if that was because he was in character, or because he didn’t even need to play the part to look that dead inside.

“So, um,” Prompto said, weakly. “Guess throwing the Prince at an undead mob falls under what _not_ to do when applying for the Crownsguard, huh?”

Without moving his head – which was supposedly stitched and screwed together by a mad scientist – Cor glanced at Noctis, holding his ribs as he wheezed through his laughter. Then he looked back to Prompto, through the black-rimmed, grave-sunken, long-suffering eyes of a man haunted by the torments of a thousand hyper-active, hazardous children for the past month, all in the name of the Crown Prince.

“Just this once, I think I can make an exception.”


End file.
